Since the advent of computers, there has been a steady drive toward producing smaller and more capable electronic devices, such as computing devices, communication devices and memory devices. In order to reduce the size of such devices, while maintaining or improving their respective capabilities, the size of components within the devices must be reduced. Several of the components within electronic devices are made from semiconductor materials, which in some cases are provided via a structure called a semiconductor wafer. Semiconductor wafers may be used to produce integrated circuits (ICs) having the performance and size characteristics desirable for a particular component.
Since modern integrated circuits can be manufactured to such small scales, any defects on the ICs may have a relatively large impact. If a defect is of a nature or size that is sufficient to damage semiconductor circuits, the corresponding semiconductor device's performance may be deteriorated. Defects such as contamination particles, which may be produced when a tool malfunctions or there is some other process problem, may cause shorts or otherwise prevent normal operation of the semiconductor device. The impact caused by a particular defect is often directly related to the size and/or location of the defect. Some defects are of such a nature as to essentially “kill” the corresponding wafer by rendering the wafer relatively unusable. These kill defects or killer defects, as they are sometimes called, result in yield loss during the manufacturing process.
Various efforts have been made to determine whether wafers have become contaminated during the manufacturing process including in-line inspection for visual defects. The in-line inspection happens in substantially real time to identify potential wafer defects. However, not all visually perceptible defects are actually killer defects and thus, there could be some inaccuracy associated with the decisions on whether to consider a particular wafer to be killed or failed. Accordingly, some wafers may not be identified as being defective until later, while other wafers may be unnecessarily considered defective. Moreover, in-line monitoring defect types don't always correspond with wafer sort fail bin types when actual data is examined. Thus, it may be difficult to predict what yield to expect, particularly for active or new products.
It may therefore be desirable to provide an improved system that may address some of the shortcoming described above.